Hands, Retired
A shoemaking course for a retiring surgeon
The ask
My father retires from surgery in December after thirty-four years. His hands are the steadiest I know, and he has no hobby to speak of. I'd like to give him something to do with them that isn't golf. He will come to London for it. Up to $5k.
The gift
A place on a twelve-day shoemaking course at a London workshop that makes shoes to order. Starting from a pair of lasts, cut uppers and oak-bark-tanned sole leather, he lasts, welts, stitches and finishes a pair of shoes by hand, with the shoemakers beside him. The written confirmation of his place is what he finds in the linen box, under the wax seal.
Why it's extraordinary
He has spent a career doing precise work with his hands. This gives those hands a new craft, and at the end he walks out in what they made.
The moment
The shoes are worn to dinner the night he gets home, made by the hands that spent thirty-four years in an operating room.
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